Artipedia - Arts News

Flash Art International # 251
November-December Issue
FOCUS ROMANIA

In your opinion, is an artist who lives in a peripheral area disadvantaged compared to one who lives in a big center, such as in New York, London, Moscow, Beijing, Los Angeles?

In a special survey Periphery and Center Flash Art asked this and other questions to a global range of art critics, curators and artists. Debate concerning artistic centers has diversified: the multiplication of cities that might qualify as current art centers, the exponential rise in annual mainstream art events and biennials, and the proliferation of blogs, chat rooms and interactive web-galleries make it increasingly problematic to define what and where centers or peripheries are.

The November-December issue’s core research is devoted to Romania, one of the most culturally active and progressive countries of the former East Bloc. Focus Romania includes a dictionary of 27 artists and offers an insight into the way artists think and operate today in relation to their predecessors of the Communist period and their contemporary international colleagues.

Complementing the dictionary, two features presents an in-depth analysis of the works of two outstanding artists: Mircea Cantor speaks with Alessandro Rabottini about his Romanian origins and his commitment to the present and future, while Victor Man’s paintings and installations are examined through an essay by Simona Nastac.

Extending the sojourn in the Eastern Europe, the second part of Aaron Moulton’s travelogue, “From Kosovo to Kaliningrad,” goes through the art worlds of Bulgaria, Ukraine, Estonia, Russia and Poland.

In an interview with Maurizio Cattelan, Christian Holstad speaks about his idea of being an outsider artist, his current solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, and how YouTube and eBay are among his inspirational resources.

And Ali Subotnick interviews Nathalie Djurberg questioning her about her tastes and desires: “If you could have three wishes granted, what would you ask for?” the artist replies, “I would like to be really, really, really beautiful and not scared of anything. And world peace.”

This issue also contains a four-person conversation: Claire Bishop and Mark Godfrey traveled to Zurich to talk to Peter Fischli and David Weiss about their retrospectives at the Zurich Kunsthalle, Tate Modern in London and Hamburg Deitchtorhallen.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, after one year of no shows or no gallery activities, is back full time, showing and producing new works. Here she explains to Hans Ulrich Obrist how her interests are rooted in a diverse spectrum of fields, ranging from theater and music to architecture and design.

Vanessa Beecroft illustrates her new and surprising series of works called “South Sudan.” In an interview, conducted by Neville Wakefield, she explains the reasons that conduced her to these new religious icons.

This issue’s Reprint section is dedicated to Brice Marden.

Ouverture surveys the work of Matt Stokes and Global Art investigates iMovies, the new 25-channel video installation by Lucas Samaras.

In the news, Thomas Niemeyer covers the 47th October Salon in Belgrade and Anthony Downey reports on Frieze week in London.

Reviews in this issue include: Wolfgang Tillmans, Barnaby Furnas, Seth Price, Tobias Putrih, Idris Khan, Collier Schorr, Mark Wallinger, Pawel Althamer, Kris Martin, Isa Genzken, Arturas Raila, Dan Perjovschi, “Ideal City – Invisible City” in Potsdam and Printemps de Septembre 2006 in Toulouse, France.

This issue’s cover artists are Christian Holstad and Nathalie Djurberg.

Get your hands on a copy of the November-December issue of the world’s leading art magazine while supplies last.

For information and subscriptions:
Flash Art International
Via Carlo Farini, 68
20159 Milan, ITALY
Tel. +39 02 668 6150
info@flashartonline.com
http://www.flashartonline.com

Sarah Sze is creating a site-specific sculptural installation for Malmö Konsthall. The installa-tion will fill the entire exhibition space and interact with the surrounding architecture. A com-plex network of patterns, structures and details works together to create movement through the space. It is like a spontaneous organism that overflows, takes off, flows, hovers, and finally conquers the entire space. Many small individual components work together to create a greater whole. The components are formed out of small everyday and trivial objects which Sze carefully and thoughtfully combines and links into an airy and transparent structure.

With a technique that is both painterly and sculptural, and with the interplay between the individual components and the overall whole, Sze explores the boundaries between art and everyday life.

The installation offers many angles of approach and can scarcely be experienced all at once or be captured in a single glance. There are many components and details to be discovered gradually as the visitor explores the sculpture. Some of these are very vulnerable and fragile, while others are more distant and unreachable.

The materials Sze uses are well known from everyday life and we recognise them from our immediate surroundings. She always acquires most of her materials from the location where the installation will be exhibited. A hammer from the United States does not look like one from Japan. She often finds what she needs in the building supply stores which are now so common. Objects she often uses in her sculptures range from matches, wool and cables to plants, fans and ladders.

She often chooses to use several thousand examples of the same object. When these everyday objects are placed close together to form entire swarms their original intended use is transformed. Their meaning and significance are changed and together they acquire a more organic affinity with each other.

Sarah Sze was born in Boston in 1969 and lives and works in New York. She studied at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut and at the School of Visual Art in New York. She has exhibited at a number of locations around the world, including the Venice Biennale in 1999, the Whitney Museum in New York in 2003, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1998. This is her first solo exhibition in the Nordic countries.

Opening Friday 1 December 7-9 p.m. Invitation attached.
You are welcome to contact me for further information!

Lena Leeb-Lundberg +46 (0)40-34 12 94, +46 (0)708-34 12 94 or
lena.leeb@malmo.se
MALMÖ KONSTHALL
Information is also available at our website: http://www.konsthall.malmo.se

Next exhibition:
MICHAEL ELMGREEN & INGAR DRAGSET
This Is The First Day Of My Life 10 March – 6 May 2007

The exhibition ”This Is The First Day Of My Life” by Elmgreen & Dragset will be a comprehensive presentation of the artist duo’s sculptural works from 1997-2007. Several new productions will be shown together with well known works from the artists’ production and installed into a complex environment of arcades and secret rooms in which the spectator is more likely to get lost than getting an overview. It is the first time that the artist duo is presented on such a grand scale in the region where they originally started working

Press preview Thursday 8 March at 11 a.m. Opening Friday 9 March 7-9 p.m.

.all hawaii eNtrées / luNar reGGae is an experimental group exhibition curated by Philippe Parreno and Rachael Thomas, Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. The title is an anagram extracted from the New Galleries / Na Galleraithe Nua – the galleries in which the exhibition is held. Rather than a single artist producing work for an exhibition space, .all hawaii eNtrées / luNar reGGae suggests a model of sociability, which is neither prescriptive nor proscriptive. The starting point of the exhibition is not to have one set idea, but to have a placement of works alongside each other that unfold to create a vibrating temporality. Over 20 artists, writers and thinkers have been invited to participate in this project. It creates a discursive space and a continuous dialogue which allows the curators to go beyond fixed notions of the function of a group show. The collaborative nature of this exhibition seeks to deconstruct the relationship between individual artworks and the phenomenological effects of space and light.

From Ulysses’ return home to sci-fi short stories, a way of changing how we look at an exhibition… to re-adjust our vision.

.all hawaii eNtrées / luNar reGGae
Irish Museum of Modern Art/ Áras Nua-Ealaíne na hÉireann
30 November – 18 February 2007

The exhibition catalogue includes essays by Rachael Thomas and Philippe Parreno, alongside texts by the science fiction writer Cory Doctorow, the artist Liam Gillick, the novelist Grant Morrison, the social scientist Hans Pruijt and the novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Published by IMMA and Charta.

A limited edition entitled Nails Sewer Legs, 2006, by Philippe Parreno and Liam Gillick is available at IMMA. Please contact Maeve Butler, maeve.butler@imma.ie for further information.

Other events
Winter lecture: The Event is Permanent
Rachael Thomas (Chair), Liam Gillick, John Bowe, Declan Long and Grant Morrison, will discuss ‘future systems of copyright’
29th November at 3.30pm, Chapel, IMMA
Booking is essential, automatic booking line
Tel + 353 1 612 9948 or Email talksandlectures@imma.ie

IMMA, Royal Hospital, Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8, Ireland
Tel + 353 1 612 9900
Email info@imma.ie
http://www.imma.ie

Mirabilia
New artist book by Jakub Dolejs

Book launch on Wednesday November 29, 6-8 pm
Angell Gallery, 890 Queen Street West, Toronto

After premiering in London and New York, Jakub Dolejs’s book Mirabilia will have its official launch in Toronto. The artist will be in attendance for book signing. A limited edition of 30 signed and numbered books with an original drawing by the artist will also be available at the book launch. Don’t miss the opportunity to get your hands on this collectible item at a special book launch price.

Go to http://www.jakubdolejs.com/publications/mirabilia to find out more about the book.

Mirabilia can be purchased online at http://www.angellgallery.com/publications.

For more information contact Angell Gallery at 416 533 0444 or at info@angellgallery.com.

Genre Visual Art Opening
Event Dowsing for Failure
Place 510 Fort St.
Date Friday, November 24
Time 8pm
Admission free

Open Space has a reputation for addressing unexpected topics. Dowsing for Failure is the latest in a series of projects that extend visual art practices. Curated and “dowsed” by Victoria-based artists and theorists Doug Jarvis and Ted Hiebert this exhibition promises to confound and enlighten.

Featuring photography, screen-based media and objects from an international line- up of artists, Dowsing includes work from Benjamin Bellas (Chicago), Nate Larson (Chicago), Gordon Lebredt (Toronto), Daniel Olson (Montreal), Mike Paget (Calgary), June Pak (Toronto) and Anthony Schrag (Glasgow, Scotland).

For more information please contact Open Space at 383-8833.

The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies
in America at Columbia University

invites you to the Opening Reception for
the Fall, 2006 Premio New York Exhibition

“The Trilogy: Drawings”
Paolo Chiasera

“13 Most Beautiful Avatars”
Eva and Franco Mattes (aka 0100101110101101.ORG)
(Online Exhibition sponsored by Rhizome.org and the New Museum of
Contemporary Art)

The Italian Academy
1161 Amsterdam Avenue just south of 118th Street
www.italianacademy.columbia.edu

For reservations, please contact wb2149@columbia.edu

Exhibition open to the public: November 30-December 19
9:30 am-4:30pm Monday-Friday

The Premio New York is sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, the Italian Academy
and the Italian Cultural Institute of New York

P R E S S R E L E A S E
The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University
and the Italian Cultural Institute of New York are pleased to present the

PREMIO NEW YORK Fall 2006 EXHIBITION

PAOLO CHIASERA
The Trilogy: Drawings

EVA and FRANCO MATTES (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG)
13 Most Beautiful Avatars

Opening: Thursday, November 30, 2006, 6-8pm at the Italian Academy
1161 Amsterdam Avenue (just south of 118th Street), New York, NY 10027
Subway #1 to 116th Street

The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia
University, together with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(Directorate General for Cultural Promotion and Cooperation) and the
Italian Cultural Institute of New York, sponsor the Premio New York (New
York Prize), a residency program for emerging Italian artists. The
artists in residence for the fall semester of the Fifth Edition of the
Premio New York are Paolo Chiasera and Eva Mattes.

PAOLO CHIASERA presents “The Trilogy: Drawings” as part of his ongoing
video and multi-media project entitled “The Trilogy: Vincent, Cornelius,
Pieter” in which he explores the relationship between personal and
collective mythology. The show at the Italian Academy consists of works
in ink and gouache on paper, a “storyboard” for the larger project of
three videos in which the artist uses masks to investigate the
possibilities in being a contemporary artist. In three separate videos
Chiasera casts himself as the three renowned painters, Vincent Van Gogh,
Cornelius Escher and Pieter Brueghel, donning simple hand-crafted masks
and embarking on a mysterious quest. “Somewhere between conscious
attack of the mechanisms of the social and aesthetic induction of a
clearly ineffective form of mythology, and a blind faith in the myth as
a representation of contemporary history and power, is the ambiguity
that Chiasera strives for and which allows him - as an artist - both to
toy with contemporary myths and judge them at the same time.” (Andrea
Viliani, Curator, MAMbo Museo Arte Moderna Bologna). Paolo Chiasera has
exhibited extensively throughout Europe and is currently affiliated with
the Massimo Minini Gallery in Brescia, Italy. Chiasera’s works
incorporate traditional artist media such as painting and sculpture
within a performance and video format. His 2005 video “The Following
Days” records a hallucinatory performance of three persons encountering
the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini (as a 15-foot-high plaster
sculpture) in the countryside near Bologna.

EVA and FRANCO MATTES (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG) present “13 Most
Beautiful Avatars,” a portrait series at the Italian Academy and in an
online exhibit organized by Rhizome and co-presented by the New Museum
of Contemporary Art. Highlights of the online exhibition will be
projected in the Italian Academy’s Teatro during the opening reception.
The Matteses have been living in the virtual world, Second Life, for
over a year, exploring its terrain and interacting with its peculiar
inhabitants. The result of their “video-game flanerie” is a series of
portraits, entitled “13 Most Beautiful Avatars.” Not unlike Warhol’s
entourage of stars, captured in the “13 Most Beautiful Boys” and “13
Most Beautiful Women” portrait series, the Matteses’ “13 Most Beautiful
Avatars” captures the most visually dynamic and celebrated “stars” of
Second Life.

The portraits reflect Second Life aesthetics, featuring the bright
colors, “artificial” light, broad flat areas, 3D shapes, and surreal
perspectives that are typical of this virtual world. Overall, the series
draws on the technological developments which allow the creation of
alternate identities within simulated worlds. Despite the relative
newness of using video game-derived source materials, the avatars’ icons
recall questions common to earlier eras of portraiture, including the
cultural and psychological context of the images, and the relationships
between high art and subculture, between contemporary art and
“traditional” art forms, and between art and life itself.

Eva and Franco Mattes are known for their controversial artworks, such
as staging high-profile hoaxes and defeating the Nike Corporation in a
legal battle over a fake advertising campaign. Their works have been
shown worldwide including the Venice Biennale, Manifesta and Postmasters
Gallery, New York.

Concurrent with the show at the Italian Academy is an online exhibition
co-presented by the New Museum of Contemporary Art and Rhizome. The
exhibition, in Second Life’s increasingly popular Ars Virtua gallery,
mirrors the Italian Academy’s art gallery. The online show is open
November 15 - December 29, and is visible here:
http://rhizome.org/events/timeshares

The show will run from Nov. 30-Dec. 19, 2006,
Monday through Friday, 9:30 am to 4:30 pm.

WITHOUT EFFECT
Video Performance and Sound Art

November 25th, 2006
Doors: 8:30pm, Performance: 9:00pm (sharp)
Video In Studios / Satellite Video Exchange Society
604-872-8337 ext. 3, event@videoinstudios.com

Without Effect is an evening of video performance artists improvising with sound artists to create one-off cut up narrative. Moving away from the effects of eye candy demonstrated by most VJs this set of performers will present a new kind of cinema where the final edit simply sets on a valley of dissipated signals.

Featured performances include:

Jackson 2bears performing “Dead Injuns - Remix Warz” consisting of the live manipulation (remixing) of audio and video media using digitally encoded vinyl records and specially designed software. Inspired by the need to re-appropriate indigenous identity symbols; this performance explores issues of Native American stereotypes and racism in the media, film and popular culture.

Miriam Needoba remixing excerpts from her latest film “The Land of the Lotus Eaters”. She will be accompanied by Coin Gutter (Emma Hendrix and Graeme Scott) famous for their macrosonic dissection and cross disciplinary collaboration.

Kenny Roux and Jesse Scott mixing up their usual individual eclectic spirits into one bad ass surprise.

HANS HAACKE
for real
Works 1959 – 2006
An exhibition at two places:

November 17, 2006 – February 4, 2007
DEICHTORHALLEN HAMBURG
Deichtorstraße 1-2, D-20095 Hamburg
Tel. ++49 - 40 - 32 10 30
mail@deichtorhallen.de
http://www.deichtorhallen.de

November 18, 2006 – January 14, 2007
AKADEMIE DER KüNSTE, BERLIN
Pariser Platz 4, D-10117 Berlin
Tel. ++49 – 30 - 200 57-10 00
info@adk.de
http://www.adk.de

Deichtorhallen in Hamburg and Akademie der Künste in Berlin are presenting the most extensive exhibition so far of works by Hans Haacke and the first retrospective of the German-born artist in his homeland. The exhibition is organized in two locations, with 71 works from the artists own collection and several big international museums and lenders.

Since the early 60s, Hans Haacke has managed to keep his independence relative to institutions and is considered, especially by a younger generation of artists, as a moral authority. Internationally, time and again, he has produced spectacular political works. In 1993 his installation in the German pavilion at the Venice Biennial, together with Nam June Paik, was awarded the Golden Lion. And a few months ago, a commemorative permanent installation, honoring Rosa Luxemburg, has been completed in Berlin.

Since the beginning of the 1970s, the critical analysis and presentation of the political, economic, and institutional connections between the protagonists of the art market und museums, as well as of sponsors and mega collectors are at the core of a major part of Hans Haacke’s work. Another central aspect of his work is dedicated to ecological questions and to issues that matter outside the circumscribed spaces of institutions and have relevance in the public arena.

This joint exhibition includes, in both venues, installations, sculptures, photographs, paintings and text works from 1959 until today. The emphasis in Hamburg is on early works as well as on works, which deal with the economy, business and sponsoring. In Berlin, at the Pariser Platz, a politically and historically charged site, the Akademie der Künste presents works in which history and politics will play the dominant role.

Hans Haacke conceived new installations for both Hamburg and Berlin. “Innen/Außen: Spiegelfechterei” at Deichtorhallen brings the outside environment into the exhibition space, while “Kein schöner Land” at Akademie der Künste addresses xenophobia in Germany today.

Installation views of the Deichtorhallen Hamburg under: http://www.deichtorhallen.de
Installation views of the Akademie der Künste under: http://www.adk.de

Curators:
Robert Fleck (Deichtorhallen Hamburg), Matthias Flügge (Akademie der Künste, Berlin)

A catalogue of about 340 pages with contributions by Benjamin Buchloh, Rosalyn Deutsche, Walter Grasskamp, as well as numerous essays by Hans Haacke is published by Richter Verlag, Düsseldorf . (German/English)

The exhibition was funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Kunststiftung NRW.

Press Contacts
Akademie der Künste , Manfred Mayer
Tel. ++49 - 30 / 200 57 - 1510
presse@adk.de

Deichtorhallen Hamburg , Angelika Leu-Barthel
Tel. ++49 - 40 / 32 103 - 250,
presse@deichtorhallen.de

Alice Crawley: Sixty Years of Art-Making
December 1 2006 -January 14 2007
Opening reception December 3 at 2 pm

This retrospective exhibition features the sculpture of one of Niagara’s most influential artists. Crawley was a founding member of the Niagara Artists Company in St Catharines and has been a mentor for several generations of artists. Often initially inspired by mundane objects or occurrences, the works demonstrate her astounding ability to turn virtually any material or experience into a profound work of art.

Grimsby Public Art Gallery
18 Carnegie Ln., Grimsby, ON., L3M 1Y1
ph: 905-945-3246 fx: 905-945-1789
http://www.town.grimsby.on.ca

Bettina Sellmann makes paintings that function as metaphors for contemporary feelings of imprisonment in social conventions and psychological isolation. Utilizing old master portraits as inspiration, she focuses on the late 18th century as a climactic period of elaborate external facades that were at once romantic and artificial. She creates “see-through versions” of these historic paintings using watercolor on canvas in thin veil-like layers of pigment. Sellmann transforms these mysterious portraits to resemble people she knows or deeply relates to. By visually fusing the past and the present, she reveals both a continuity and metamorphosis of societal restrictions through time. The resulting images expose an inner vulnerability in the master works and their subjects.

Born in Munich, Germany, Bettina Sellmann received a Master degree from Staedelschule Frankfurt am Main and an MFA from Hunter College in New York. She lives and works in Brooklyn. This will be her third solo show with the gallery.

Derek Eller Gallery is located at 615 West 27th Street, between 11th and 12th Avenues. Hours are Tuesday - Saturday from 11am - 6pm. For further information or visuals, please contact the gallery at 212.206.6411 or visit www.derekeller.com.